a practical system design software for SolarWorld partners

Lars Koerner – Senior Product Manager Off-Grid Systems- SolarWorld AG

BSW-Solar: Special Exhibition Rural Electrification / Intersolar 2011

SolarWorld: Locations and Sunmodules

Quick facts about SolarWorld:

• Employees: ~ 3,000

• Turnover 2010: ~ €1.3 bn

Goal of the development:

• A sizing program for every day use.

• It should fulfill the needs of system designers better than any other program on

the market.

• It should be…

– …easy to use for beginners, but flexible enough for experts,

– …include only essential functions, and

– …be as detailed as necessary not as possible.

Welcome screen

Battery Charge

controller AC-Loads

ηsystem = 95% * 85% * 90% = 73%

Inverter/Charger Solar

modules

DC-coupling: stand-alone / hybrid

Core calculation: system efficiency

Genset

• Main solar module derating factors:

• QUALITY!

• cell temperature

• soiling

• shading

5000 Wh/d

Energy demand

15,000 EURO

System cost

Efficiency evaluation functionality: Example for a health center in Mali

Efficient appliances

5000 Wh/d

1500 Wh/d

original efficient

Energy demand

15,000 EURO

4,500 EURO

original efficient

System cost

1,500

-70% -60% You just saved

9,000€ !!!

Efficiency evaluation functionality: Example for a health center in Mali

DC-coupled system sizing

System sizing is done in one single window only!

sample sizing for original, inefficient system

Sizing functionalities: Battery example

Modifiable database

Recommendations

for beginners

Freedom of choice

for experts

Automatic selection

Plausibility and

performance check

Quick overview

Extra features: Wire and fuse sizing

Extra features: Wire and fuse sizing

Select max. loss & calculated MPP loss

Automatic calculation of fuse size

Automatic calculation of wire size

Connection Box selection and calculation

Select distance to next connection

Electrical values for MPP on wire

List of needed wires

created automatically

Sample of customer reports

How about sizing one Sunny Island Multicluster Box 36 hybrid system

for 600 of those health centers with efficient appliances?

No Problem:

Sample monthly energy values

Summary of main features:

• Automatic download of global long-term weather data

• Sizing of all main current off-grid system types, incl. hybrid and Sunny Island systems

• Yield estimation for grid-connected systems

• Component database modifiable by user

• Commercial calculation sheet for offers

• Energy efficiency evaluation to optimize system size and cost

• Row spacing calculation, shading visualization and wire dimensioning

• Automatic generation of customer documents

• English / French / German (Spanish / Portuguese in preparation)

• Exclusively available for SolarWorld‘s off-grid customers!